Oberlo provides entrepreneurs the sourcing tool they need to create a successful store. Many have found rapid success upon using Oberlo. Unfortunately, too much success too quickly can sometimes raise red flags. Oberlo processes hundreds of thousands of orders per day. The issue in this article happens to a rare few. Hopefully, by reading this, you can take the right steps to ensure that this issue doesn’t happen to you or if it does, you’re equipped with the knowledge to resolve it quickly. In this article, you’ll learn why AliExpress sometimes closes orders, how to resolve the issue quickly and how to maintain a positive relationship with your customers during it.

Why Does AliExpress close orders?

The main reason why AliExpress closes orders is for fraudulent activity. With Oberlo, people have the potential to make a lot of profit quickly. If you start making $10,000 a day, AliExpress may be suspicious of your account. They have a responsibility to ensure that they aren’t losing money so they’ll close your orders as an extra precaution.

Your account can also appear as fraudulent to AliExpress as you’ll regularly be ordering from the same location and shipping internationally. It may appear as if the credit card has been stolen.

Another reason why they may block orders would be if your credit card fails. A credit card can fail when you process too many orders at once for the first time or have insufficient funds which cause your bank to freeze the card. Make sure that you have enough funds on your credit card to allow the payment through.

Next, making changes to your account can result in an account review which may lead to a closing of orders. For example, if your account transitions from a VIP level of Gold to Platinum you may be subjected to a review. They may temporarily close your orders until you verify your account.

If you hire a virtual assistant (VA), to manage and fulfill your orders, you need to make sure that they never use a VPN or proxy while working on your store. If you require the help of multiple virtual assistants make sure they all work out of the same office.

Issues can also arise if you go on vacation to another country. Since your credit card will be for your home country, processing orders in another country while shipping to another country can get flagged as fraudulent. If you plan to go on vacation, have someone at home or in the office fulfill your orders for you while you’re gone.

Some stores have also noticed that their orders get blocked when they leave negative reviews on stores or complain about an issue. If you have open cases against a supplier, you may have your account blocked.

Is it possible to unblock your account?

Yes, absolutely. Several people have successfully had their accounts reinstated allowing them to continue processing orders.

You’ll be required to verify your account. You may be asked to provide some of the following:

Credit card

Passport

Driver’s license

Proof of business

Contact information

After scanning a picture of your documents, cross out private information in Photoshop or in Canva. For example, on your credit card, put a line across all numbers except that last four digits. Make sure that the numbers before the last four aren’t legible at all. If you took a photo of your documents on your phone, delete them out of your email inbox and off your phone. Don’t skip this step. Also, make sure that you compress the size of your image files so that they go through.

If you want to speed up your process, you can live chat with one of AliExpress’ representatives. You’ll want to go to their Contact Us page, click on Payments, choose the question that’s most relevant to your specific situation and then the “Chat Now” button will appear. The customer service team is helpful and quick as long as you use the live chat.

Don’t be afraid to be persistent with AliExpress’ customer support. Be polite and respectful at all times. No one will want to help you if you’re rude to them. Tell them how grateful you are for their service and how much it would mean to you if they helped you fix this. Comply with all of their requests as soon as you’re told what to do. As soon as you’ve submitted all documentation, live chat with support and ask them if they can remove the block on your account. Once they’ve removed it, contact them thanking them for their support and for resolving the issue quickly. With live chat, you can have your account up and running in less than 24 hours.

Getting verified by Alipay can also help prevent the issue from occurring again. By using live chat, you can have your account verified faster.

Paying via AliExpress Pocket will ensure that your orders never get closed. It allows you to manage payments and refunds quickly. You’ll need to deposit money into the account to receive credits. However, once it’s in there it can’t be taken out and the amount expires within three years.

This shouldn’t be an issue if you’re doing high volume orders on a daily basis. If you know that you’re paying AliExpress a certain average every day you should know how much to keep in the account. Avoid putting in much more than you need to as withdrawing the money isn’t possible.

You can also focus on paying via PayPal instead of by credit card. You’ll just always need to ensure that you have enough funds in the account to make the transaction happen.

Dealing with Customers

When AliExpress closes your orders, you need to think about the customer. As soon as the issue is resolved, email every customer whose order is going to be delayed and let them know the issue. Offer them a special discount code that they can use for future purchases. Make sure that items are shipped with ePacket, if possible, so that it gets to your customer more promptly, even if that means paying an extra couple of dollars.

Be transparent with your customers as issues happen. A customer is more likely to understand that “there was a slight hiccup with manufacturing but everything is now resolved” versus silence and a longer wait time. If you’re upfront as things happen you’ll actually prevent refunds rather than making them happen. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes, they don’t know there’s a reason for the delay. They just think you have slow shipping times which frustrates them more.

Ways to Apologize

Offer a 10% refund to all customers and apologize for the delay

Provide customer with a unique coupon code that they can use for future orders

Write the most apologetic and empathetic personal email you’ve ever written in your life that they instantly forgive you

Provide them with a free ‘I’m sorry’ gift (AliExpress has countless products that are a dollar or less such as jewelry, phone cases, hand towels, etc)

Email Template to Send to Customers

Subject: Shipping can take a bit longer than expectedHey [name],

Thank you so much for your recent [store name] order.

Unfortunately, there’s been a slight hiccup with manufacturing. Everything has been resolved but it may cause a delay in your order.

We hate letting you down as you deserve the best service possible. So we have a couple of solutions for you:

We have provided you with your own special discount code that you can use for any future purchase to receive 10% off. Code: firstname-lastname10

We’ve also refunded you 10% of the cost of your current shipment.

We’re so sorry to have let you down and we promise to never do it to you again.

If you have any questions, feel free to reply to this email and I will personally answer them for you.

Hope you have a great day,

Your Name

Feel free to add your personality to your email. You can use sad, crying or rainy pictures or gifs to bring the email to life. What you tweak what you offer your customer or how you express your apologies.

How to Prevent Closed Orders from Happening

The best way to prevent orders from closing is to select “Other payment methods” during the ‘review your order’ stage. After you click ‘Confirm & Pay,’ you’ll be redirected and will be able to proceed to the next order. The orders will all appear under ‘Awaiting Payment’ in the orders tab.

You can do a bulk payment which is optimal if you have restrictions on how many orders you can process a day with your bank.

Most find that once they start making around $10,000/day, their orders get blocked. As you’ll be required to provide documentation, it might be a good idea to contact AliExpress’ customer support as you get closer to reaching that milestone.

Paying via AliExpress Pocket may also save you some headaches. Just make sure you put in an amount that you know you’ll be able to use on your orders.

Another thing you’ll want to ensure is that your home bank is fully aware that you’re ordering large quantities from AliExpress. This will help prevent any issues locally while also ensuring that your credit card doesn’t get frozen for fraudulent activity.

Treat AliExpress vendors with respect. Like you, they’re running a business. In the event that you’re unhappy with their service, find another vendor who offers the same product. If you’re constantly opening up cases against vendors your account is likely to get flagged. Sometimes you just have to eat up the cost, learn from your mistake and find a new vendor. If your customers are upset about the quality of a product, focus on finding a new product instead of complaining to the vendor. Don’t burn bridges. There are a lot of honest vendors and great products on AliExpress, choose products with high order volumes as it’s likely that they have regular customers who trust them.

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Nicole Martins Ferreira

Nicole Martins Ferreira is a self-employed eCommerce entrepreneur. Her passion for eCommerce is so strong that she works on her website 7 days a week and has never been happier. She is committed to helping others succeed and is constantly learning new tricks to provide more value to entrepreneurs. Follow Nicole on Twitter at @NicoleMarFer

Top End

So, now that alipay isn’t an option is ali express pocket our only soloution?

Florian Tep

What do you mean by alipay isn’t an option?

The Placard

You can no longer use ali express pocket balance to pay for itmens

Miss

This is what happens when you put all of your eggs in one basket. Oberlo, there are other places to source products from China. Can you add DH gate integration?

Voice John

You expecting customer not to be rude or mean with aliexpress customer service when they charge their credit card and not geting anyitem and wait month or more to get refund

Salah Fouzi

What do you mean, you can’t use aliexpress pocket to pay for orders ? Since when ?

Zukiddy Team

Hello. Is this issue ever solved? How do you guys are now managing to get orders thru alu express without being closed?

Nami

So, as far as I understood, you can have problems with closed orders if you ship from one country to another. Then I think it will be impossible for me to start a business in this situation: I am from Romania, I register my business and open a bank account in Bulgaria (or Romania, not sure yet, but I currently live here), I want to ship in the US, maybe later expand to other countries, I am constantly traveling and moving to other countries (this is why I want an online business in the first place). Is there any way of doing this without spending lots of time and money to promote my store and then get my orders closed? Thank you!

gabby

I see that many People read the article above, but have questions also. It would be nice if someone, who has been working with Aliexpress, for awhile could answer here. I have a question about the no 3 reason an account could be shut down, which posted below. It seems this is saying, that a person needs to have a well funded bank account, to start a Shopify shop. If one is just starting out, on a shoestring budget, how is the possible?. It doesn’t seem that it is possible. Not everyone has credit cards either, or credit cards with lots of credit available, to them.

“Another reason why they may block orders would be if your credit card fails. A credit card can fail when you process too many orders at once for the first time or have insufficient funds which cause your bank to freeze the card. Make sure that you have enough funds on your credit card to allow the payment through.”